Commemoration of Gilbert of Sempringham, Founder of the Gilbertine Order, 1189 Christ became ever more and more painfully convinced read more

Commemoration of Gilbert of Sempringham, Founder of the Gilbertine Order, 1189 Christ became ever more and more painfully convinced that men did not know God. They can't, He said, or they could not live as they are doing. Some of them are so anxious and worried, with all God's care and strength and love to lean against! They cannot know of it, and be so fidgety and nervous as they are. Some of them are afraid. Their consciences have drawn so grim a picture of Him that fearfully they shrink out of His presence, wish there were not God! Frightened of God, with His free and full and eager forgiveness, with His incredible generosity, with His compassionate heart that nobody can sour into illwill, do what he may. And even the best of them are not quite sure. Their faith at most is but a timorous hope, and a trembling perhaps; no more. Often in the Synagogue He had watched them sobbing out their penitential psalms and begging God to turn from anger and be gracious toward them... And it amazed Christ. Look at His sun, He cries, how it streams down in all its midday fullness on the most unworthy, and at the rain, how it falls healingly upon the fields of the least grateful, and how He keeps thrusting His benefits and blessings into the most soiled hands, loading the most impossible people with His kindnesses. If only I could make them see God as He really is: if only they could realize that He is their Father, that what their own child is to them, that, and far more, each of them is to Him.

Some people are reluctant to consider the future, arguing that it must be left to solve its own problems and read more

Some people are reluctant to consider the future, arguing that it must be left to solve its own problems and to shape its own beliefs. In all right efforts for the future, religion must be given first place. No provision to secure peace or just social principles can be worth much unless the foremost aim be to establish the Kingdom of God. It is not the minds and bodies only of generations to come that have to be remembered, but their immortal souls.

Feast of Patrick, Bishop of Armagh, Missionary, Patron of Ireland, c.460 It is generally true that all that is read more

Feast of Patrick, Bishop of Armagh, Missionary, Patron of Ireland, c.460 It is generally true that all that is required to make men unmindful of what they owe God for any blessing is that they should receive that blessing often and regularly.

Commemoration of Brigid, Abbess of Kildare, c.525 God does not lead His children around hardship, but leads them straight read more

Commemoration of Brigid, Abbess of Kildare, c.525 God does not lead His children around hardship, but leads them straight through hardship. But He leads! And amidst the hardship, He is nearer to them than ever before.

Feast of the Beheading of John the Baptist Do not be too quick to condemn the man who no read more

Feast of the Beheading of John the Baptist Do not be too quick to condemn the man who no longer believes in God: for it is perhaps your own coldness and avarice and mediocrity and materialism and selfishness that have chilled his faith.

Commemoration of Ignatius of Loyola, Founder of the Society of Jesus, 1556 Sin is not only manifested in certain read more

Commemoration of Ignatius of Loyola, Founder of the Society of Jesus, 1556 Sin is not only manifested in certain acts that are forbidden by divine command. Sin also appears in attitudes and dispositions and feelings. Lust and hate are sins as well as adultery and murder. And, in the traditional Christian view, despair and chronic boredom -- unaccompanied by any vicious act -- are serious sins. They are expressions of man's separation from God, as the ultimate good, meaning, and end of human existence.

Among our own people also the church sorely needs clergy in close touch with the ordinary life of the laity, read more

Among our own people also the church sorely needs clergy in close touch with the ordinary life of the laity, living the life of ordinary men, sharing their difficulties and understanding their trials by close personal experience. Stipendiary clergy cut off by training and life from that common experience are constantly struggling to get close to the laity by wearing lay clothing, sharing in lay amusements, and organizing lay clubs; but they never quite succeed. To get close to men, it is necessary really to share their experience, and to share their experience is to share it by being in it, not merely to come as near to it as possible without being in it.

Feast of François de Sales, Bishop of Geneva, Teacher, 1622 Be patient, not only with respect to the read more

Feast of François de Sales, Bishop of Geneva, Teacher, 1622 Be patient, not only with respect to the main trials which beset you, but also under the accidental and accessory annoyances which arise out of them. We often find people who imagine themselves ready to accept a trial in itself who are impatient of its consequences.

It is a great mistake, and of very pernicious consequence to the souls of men, to imagine that the gospel read more

It is a great mistake, and of very pernicious consequence to the souls of men, to imagine that the gospel is all promises on God's part, and that our part is only to believe them and to rely upon God for the performance of them, and to be very confident that He will make them good, though we do nothing else but only believe that He will do so. That the Christian religion is only a declaration of God's goodwill to us, without any expectation of duty from us -- this is an error which one could hardly think could ever enter into any who have the liberty to read the Bible and attend to what they read and find there. The three great promises of the gospel are all very expressly contained in our Saviour's first sermon upon the mount. There we find the promise of blessedness often repeated but never absolutely made, but upon certain conditions, plainly required on our part, as repentance, righteousness, humility, mercy, peaceableness, meekness, patience. Forgiveness of sins is likewise promised, but only to those who make a penitent acknowledgement of them and ask forgiveness for them., and are ready to grant that forgiveness to others which they beg of God for themselves. The gift of God's Holy Spirit is likewise promised, but it is upon condition of our earnest and importunate prayer to God. The gospel is everywhere full of precepts enjoining duty and obedience upon our part, as well as of promises on God's part, assuring blessings to us -- nay, full of terrible threatenings also if we disobey the precepts of the gospel.